Apple Store Glitch Strikes Again with ‘New’ Decade-Old MacBook Air Listing

Do you want a 13-inch MacBook Air that’s at least a decade old? Per Apple’s online storefront, that exact model is apparently available to order.

An iDrop News reader reached out to us with a tip about an old and obsolete Mac becoming available on Apple’s website. Specifically, it’s a MacBook Air equipped with an 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo — a chipset that was first produced in 2006 before being discontinued in 2012.

The MacBook Air is priced at A$2,199 (about $1,500 USD) which seems pretty steep for a product that probably couldn’t run any version of modern apps.

Interestingly, Apple’s site says that the product will be available to ship in 30 days. You can see the MacBook Air listing for yourself at this link.

Of course, before you rush off to buy the vintage Apple tech, you should note that you probably won’t be able to actually get it straight from Apple.

This is actually the second time in the last week or two that an obsolete product has randomly appeared on Apple’s online storefront. Just a couple days ago, a 17-inch iMac with a 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor popped up and was apparently available to order.

A few curious Apple watchers actually decided to pony up the $999 asking price and order the antique machine. Unsurprisingly, they soon received emails from Apple letting them know that their orders had been canceled because they couldn’t be “entered into (their) order system.”

The 17-inch iMac also disappeared from the online store shortly after. Because of that, we suspect the same thing will happen to the downright ancient MacBook Air.

As we’ve previously covered, this is likely the result of a glitch in Apple’s online storefront system. Presumably, Apple keeps listings of the Macs and other devices that it has sold over the years, just flagged as unavailable.

But, somehow, these discontinued Macs keep popping up for sale. While previously rumored to be evidence of an impending iMac refresh, the fact that it’s happened again for another random Mac seems to suggest that it’s simply a storefront error. Apple last refreshed its MacBook Air lineup in July of last year.

Of course, if you actually wanted a MacBook Air from 2008, you can find them pretty easily on third-party marketplaces like eBay.

Better yet, they typically go for a few hundred dollars instead of the four-digit price point of Apple’s erroneous listing. (Not to mention the fact that you’ll actually be getting the laptop, instead of just having your order canceled.)